The last Kingdom Roadtrip

We had a pretty goods night sleep and woke up around 7:15am. After coffees we put the bed away and by 8am we were both dressed.
The car park we had spent the night in had already started getting visitors, mainly dog walkers, but I didn’t want to be unprepared if someone knocked on the door and moved us along and once we were dressed we opened all the blinds and it looked like we could have just arrived.
First task of the day was to walk Ella and we took a short wander through the low lying heathlands to stretch her legs and let her do her business. Then it was back to Wanda and a 90 mile drive to our next stop. The Angel Of The North.
It rained most of the way and some of it was torrential and when we got to The Angel it had slowed to a steady drizzle, but the wind was biting.
We got Ella out and did a quick lap of the Angel and within 10 minutes the rain started to come down again and we headed back to Wanda ready for the next part of our trip.
It was 45 more miles and an hours drive and when we finally got to Bamburgh the rain had stopped and the sun was trying it’s best to come out and the castle looked magnificent towering over the landscape on it’s rocky outcropping as we drove through the village.
I had checked on the parking and realised that it would be cheaper to pay the £4 for Bamburgh castle park which was all day rather than the £4:50 for 3 hours at the links road car park so we drove straight there and paid the parking attendant.
We had brunch in Wanda first as we had both skipped breakfast and it was now 2pm, Magic Wanda Toasties are always good on a cold day.
Then we headed into the castle.
It cost us £15 each to get in which stung a little bit as we’re not used to paying to enter historical monuments in Europe but this is a privately owned castle and it has been beautifully restored.
We entered the building through the old chapel and straight away there were ancient artefacts on display and the start of the history of the castle.
Built on top of a black crag of volcanic dolerite, and part of the Whin Sill, the location was previously home to a fort of the indigenous Celtic Britons known as Din Guarie.It may have been the capital of the kingdom of Bernicia, the realm of the Gododdin people,from the realm's foundation in c. 420 until 547, the year of the first written reference to the castle. In that year the citadel was captured by the Anglo-Saxon ruler Ida of Bernicia (Beornice) and became Ida's seat.
The castle was briefly retaken by the Britons from his son Hussa during the war of 590 before being retaken later the same year.In c. 600, Hussa's successor Æthelfrith passed it on to his wife Bebba, from whom the early name Bebbanburh was derived.Vikings destroyed the original fortification in 993.
The Normans built a new castle on the site, which forms the core of the present one. William II unsuccessfully besieged it in 1095 during a revolt supported by its owner, Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria. After Robert was captured, his wife continued the defence until coerced to surrender by the king's threat to blind her husband.
Bamburgh then became the property of the reigning English monarch. Henry II probably built the keep as it was complete by 1164.Following the Siege of Acre in 1191, and as a reward for his service, King Richard I appointed Sir John Forster the first Governor of Bamburgh Castle. Following the defeat of the Scots at the Battle of Neville's Cross in 1346, King David II was held prisoner at Bamburgh Castle.
During the civil wars at the end of King John's reign, the castle was under the control of Philip of Oldcoates.In 1464 during the Wars of the Roses, it became the first castle in England to be defeated by artillery, at the end of a nine-month siege by Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, the "Kingmaker", on behalf of the Yorkists.

Modern history
The Forster family of Northumberland continued to provide the Crown with successive governors of the castle until the Crown granted ownership (or a lease according to some sources) of the church and the castle to another Sir John Forster in the mid-1500s, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries.The family retained ownership until Sir William Forster (d. 1700) was posthumously declared bankrupt, and his estates, including the castle, were sold to Lord Crew, Bishop of Durham (husband of his sister Dorothy) under an Act of Parliament to settle the debts in 1704.
Crewe placed the castle in the hands of a board of trustees chaired by Thomas Sharp, the Archdeacon of Northumberland. Following the death of Thomas Sharp, leadership of the board of trustees passed to John Sharp (Thomas Sharp's son) who refurbished the castle keep and court rooms and established a hospital on the site.In 1894, the castle was bought by the Victorian industrialist William Armstrong, who completed the restoration.
During the Second World War, pillboxes were established in the sand dunes to protect the castle and surrounding area from German invasion, and, in 1944, a Royal Navy corvette was named HMS Bamborough Castle after the castle.The castle still remains in the ownership of the Armstrong family.
After the War, the castle became a Grade I Listed property.
The public are allowed to view 14 rooms in total and the grandest of them is the grand hall in which we found the display of props from the last kingdom. Atlast we had found what we came for, Uhtred of Bebbenbug, or atleast 2 of his costumes. Unfortunately the display was tiny, consisting of just 4 costumes, Aylswiths bible, king Alfred’s mock diary of events in England and a few coins. I was a little disappointed and so was Ellie, it was hardly the display I was hoping for but I did want to see inside the castle anyway and this way we got a little bit more for our £30 entrance fee.
It took us about an hour to view all 14 rooms including a small video show of the history and Ellie sitting on a throne, something she was rather good at funnily enough.
Then while Ellie went back to Wanda and out of the biting wind and to check on the dog, I took off across the beach to get some photos.
I didn’t realise it but to get to the best viewpoint was a good 2 mile walk across the beach into the wind. It was absolutely freezing and when I got to the place to take the shot the heavens opened again.
I walked back to Wanda and it took me 45mins with the rain at my back all the way and by the time I got back I was absolutely soaked through.
Straight away I stripped off and hung my jumper and trousers in the bathroom and my coat in the wardrobe. Then I lit the fire and put the fire on to dry me and my clothes out whilst Ellie made hot drinks.
Once I was dry I took a drive up the road to a small car park which actually led to the place I had just walked back from, had I have known that earlier I could have stayed dry.
Fortunately the rain had now stopped and I managed to get out and get some lovely shots of the castle from harkness rocks, a shot I had wanted for years.
Then we headed back to the castle and parked up at the bottom in links road car park.
At the moment they are trialling a park over night scheme so it will cost us £12 to park for the night between the hours of 6pm to 8am.Outside of those hours other charges apply starting at £4:50 for 3 hours.
So to visit the castle and stay here in our own home has actually cost us £50. UK motorhome life just isn’t practical or financially viable, add to that the bad weather I don’t know why anyone would want to stay here.Read more